Thank You For A Fantastic 2024! The Thurman Perry Foundation December Newsletter
Happy (Almost) New Year Taylor!
I pray this message finds you well. We are here at the end of another year, the third for The Thurman Perry Foundation, and I am truly at a loss for how to convey the sincerity of my gratitude for each of you reading this message. The behind the scenes of this is something few people know. I think people think that nonprofit work is simply all of us begging for money. But truly, each and every way in which you engage with us is incredibly valuable.
I was explaining to someone last month that the grants that we apply for ask for seemingly innocuous things like how many followers we have on social media, how many people subscribe to our newsletter, our engagement analytics, how many people attend events, how many people OPEN our emails, etc. All of these things influence the work that we do. All of these things change the lives of the women we serve. All of these things sustain The Thurman Perry Foundation.
Lately, I find myself resting in the knowledge that though we are small, we are surely mighty. For years, I have spiraled thinking that we are not doing enough. That we will not reach our goals. That we will not have enough money. That we won’t help enough women. That every failure that looms as a spectre in my mind will eventually materialize and present a full on catastrophe. And that will be the story of the organization I love so much. Instead, and gratefully, I am regularly inundated with three words from my executive board chair “I told you.”
My mental health and physical body took a dive this year after our event in April. I am perfectly healthy. But I just became exhausted. So much so that I could not leave my bed or even leave my home for three straight months. I had everything delivered and only attended events that were pre-booked or obligated. I felt as though I couldn’t stand to see the sun. I was not unhappy, but just tired. And this exhaustion lasted for many months. I couldn’t even feed myself. And during that time, I could barely even apply for grant funding or fundraise. And as the sole fundraiser for The Thurman Perry Foundation, this was a serious problem. My body had been keeping score and I was too ashamed to tell anyone except my therapist and my God.
Both sustained me through it and the latter ensured that The Thurman Perry Foundation not only survived this period, but thrived.
We could not do what we do without you!
This year, we hit $100,000 in scholarships awarded nationwide. We are currently accepting applications for our 5th cycle of The Perry Second Chances Scholarship, where we will be awarding $80,000 in scholarships to 10 women nationwide. This is the largest individual scholarship award cycle in the organization’s history. We have now served 10,969 women nationwide since the start of the organization, which is six years earlier than our mission statement’s goal of serving 10,000 women by the year 2030.
We were featured in an international magazine this year, MISSION Magazine, thanks to our beloved friends Mr. Nile Rodgers and his lovely wife Ms. Nancy Hunt at the We Are Family Foundation. We were inundated with new donors after the loss of a major grantor due to their own organization losing funding, which caused the loss of $35,000 in an annual grant for The Thurman Perry Foundation. When we put out the call for emergency donations due to the abrupt loss of this funding, you all came through and raised over $25,000 for us.
This incredible spur of generosity towards the organization includes a donor who recently saw the photos we posted at the annual Christmas musical that we sponsor and put together for the incarcerated women at Orleans Parish Justice Center and decided, with his wife, to award us $50,000, which will arrive to us on 1/1/2025. What a year it has been and we are kicking off the new year stronger than ever.
In my heart, I know that this was all God’s way of showing me that He will always honor the promise in Luke 6:38:
“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
I promise to never give up on the work that we do here. Thank you all so much for never giving up on us nor the women we serve.”
Sincerely,
Gabrielle A. Perry, MPH
The Thurman Perry Foundation Executive Director
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Founded in memory of late U.S. Army Master Sergeant Thurman Perry Jr., The Thurman Perry foundation was created by his daughter, Gabrielle Perry, MPH, to support women and girls impacted by incarceration. We are a 501c(3) nonprofit organization. EIN 86-2519876.
